Name: Idb MCP
Author: askui

LABSCO SUMMARY

Simulators only — and the coordinate scaling that makes taps actually land.

Real iPhones are out of scope: iOS security constraints stop idb from driving the UI on physical devices, so this is a simulator tool. What it adds over raw idb is --target-screen-size, which downscales screenshots and coordinates together; AskUI recommends 1280 800 for Claude models, because full-resolution simulator screenshots lead to missed taps.

What it is

An MCP server and Python library from AskUI that wraps Facebook's IDB to control iOS simulators. It exposes the automation surface over stdio, HTTP or SSE using fastmcp.

What you get

Device management: list devices, select by UDID or name, boot and shutdown, kill IDB
Input control: tap, swipe, type text, tap keys, tap buttons
Screen utilities: capture screenshots, query screen size, get a view description
Optional scaling of screenshots and coordinates to a target viewport, via --target-screen-size
The same controls as a Python module — IDBController and IOSDevice
Your choice of stdio, HTTP or SSE transport, plus a --port option

Requirements

macOS only, Python 3.10 or newer, Xcode with iOS simulators installed, and the Facebook IDB companion via brew install idb-companion. Then pip install idb-mcp, or launch it with uvx idb-mcp@latest start stdio.

Setup effort

One command — pip install idb-mcp

See installation options

USE CASES

01

Walking an app's UI from a conversation

Select a simulator, boot it, then tap and type your way through the screens.

02

Getting taps to land on a high-resolution simulator

Start the server with --target-screen-size 1280 800 so screenshots and coordinates scale together.

03

Reading what is actually on screen

Take a screenshot or ask for the view description instead of guessing at layout.

04

Scripting simulator setup in Python

Import IDBController, select the device by name and boot it before your tests run.

BEFORE YOU INSTALL

What to know first

Requires

uvx on PATH
Python >= 3.10

Where it runs

Both documented clients run the server on your machine.

INSTALLATION

Connect your client

Server setup

TERMINAL

pip install idb-mcp

MCP Clients

Cursor, Claude Desktop

JSON

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "askui-idb-mcp": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": [
        "idb-mcp@latest",
        "start",
        "stdio",
        "--target-screen-size",
        "1280",
        "800"
      ]
    }
  }
}

Idb MCP